We kneeled down on the step in front of the altar. Anastasia stood before us. She was wearing a long white dress that hung loosely over her beautiful young body. A collar made of coins, both ancient and new ones, covered her neck and breast. Her black hair had been set up in a single coil and was held in place by a little cap of gold coins, found in the ancient temples. More beautiful jewels than these, no Greek girl can wear.
Her face was radiant. Her eyes were like two stars. Silently, all three of us prayed. When we were finished, she asked: “Will you be friends in life and death?”
“Yes,” we answered.
“Will you remember that, whatever happens, your brother is part of you? That your secret is his and his happiness yours? Devotion, sacrifice, perseverance must your soul bear for his sake, and his for yours.”
“Yes,” we said again; and Anastasia took our hands and joined them together, then she kissed each of us on the forehead; and together we said our prayers once more.
The priest, who had been standing behind the altar, now came forward and blessed all three of us. As we stood up, I saw my mother at the door of the church; she was crying.
How happy were the days that followed, in our little hut near the waters of Delphi. The evening before Aphtanides was to depart we were sitting outside, on the edge of the cliff, deep in thought; his arm was around my shoulders and mine around his. We talked about Greece, the plight of our poor country, and discussed whom we could trust.
No thought did we hide from each other and therefore I grabbed his hand and said, “One thing you must know—until now I have told no one but God—that in my soul is a love greater than even my love for my mother and for you.”
Aphtanides’ face and neck turned red and he asked, “Whom do you love?”
“I love Anastasia,” I whispered. His hand trembled in mine. His face turned as pale as a corpse. I understood—how clear it all was! I bent down and kissed his forehead. “I have never told her,” I said. “Maybe she does not love me. But, Brother mine, remember that I have been with her every day; she has grown up not only in our house but in my soul as well.”
“She shall be yours,” he said. “I cannot lie to you, and I won’t. I admit that I love her too. Tomorrow I am leaving for more than two years; before I return you will be married. I have some money. It is yours. No! You shall have it: you must!”
Slowly we walked back toward the hut. Night had come, and Anastasia met us at the doorstep; she was holding a lamp in her hand.
My mother was not at home. Anastasia looked strangely sad as she spoke to Aphtanides. “Tomorrow you leave us,” she said. “How unhappy I shall be!”
“You will miss me?” In Aphtanides’ words lay a sadness beyond sorrow, a pain as great as my own.
I said nothing but he took her hand in his and said, “My brother here loves you, do you love him? His silence speaks loudly of his love.”
Anastasia shivered and burst into tears. I saw only her and thought only of her. I threw my arms around her and said again and again: “I love you!”
She kissed me and her arms embraced my neck. The lamp fell from her hand and the room was as dark as the heart of my poor brother Aphtanides.
At sunrise he rose, kissed us all good-by, and left. His money he had given to my mother to keep for us. A few days later Anastasia became my wife.
19
A Rose from Homer’s Grave
In all the songs of the Orient there is an echo of the nightingale’s love for the rose. Through the silent, starlit night the little winged creature sings his serenade to the fragrant flower.
Not far from Smyrna, under some tall plane trees, the merchants let their heavily laden camels rest. The weary animals stretch their long necks proudly as they tread clumsily on the sacred ground. Here I saw a rose hedge in full bloom. Wild doves flew among the branches high above; in the sunlight their wings shone like mother-of-pearl.
One of the roses on the hedge was much more beautiful than any of the others; and to this one the nightingale sang of the joy and the pain of its love. The rose was silent, not even a drop of dew as a tear of pity clung to its petals. It bowed its head in the same direction as the branch, toward some large stones.
“Here rests the greatest singer the world has ever known,” said the rose. “My fragrance shall scent the air over his grave; and when the wind tears me apart, then my petals shall fall on it. The poet who composed the Iliad became earth in the earth from which I have sprung. I am a rose from the grave of Homer. How can I who am so sacred bloom only for a poor nightingale?”
The nightingale sang himself to death.
A caravan came with its heavily laden camels and its black slaves. The son of one of the camel drivers buried the little singer in the great Homer’s grave. The rose trembled in the wind.
When evening came the flower closed its petals and slept. It dreamed that one beautiful day, when the sun was shining brightly, a group of Frenchmen came to do homage at Homer’s grave. Among them there was a young man from the north, from a country of fog and northern lights. He picked the flower and pressed it between the pages of a book; in that way, he carried it home with him to his native land on another continent. The rose withered of sorrow in the book, which was opened every once in a while to be shown to guests. “Here is a rose from Homer’s grave,” the young man would say.
After that dream the flower woke and shivered in the morning breeze. One drop of dew fell from it onto the grave of Homer and the nightingale. The sun rose, and the flower bloomed more beautifully than ever before. Noon came, the hot noon of Asia. The rose heard footsteps. Strangers were coming: the Frenchmen whom the rose had dreamed about, and with them was the poet from the north. He picked the rose, kissed the fresh, living flower, and carried it home with him to the land of fog and northern lights.
Like a mummy, the corpse of the flower rests between the pages of the young poet’s copy of the Iliad. As in a dream, it hears him open the book and say, “Here is a rose from Homer’s grave.”
20
The Sandman
In all the world there is no one who knows so many stories as the sandman, and he knows how to tell them, too.
When it is evening and children are sitting around a table or in a corner on a stool, then he comes sneaking up the stairs; he walks on his stocking feet and makes no noise. Quietly he opens the door and slips into the room and throws a little sand into the eyes of the children; then they find it difficult to keep them open. He stands behind them and blows softly down their necks; and their heads seem, oh, so heavy! But it doesn’t hurt, for the sandman loves children. He just wants them to get into bed and lie there quietly, so that he can tell them stories.
When the children have fallen asleep, the sandman sits on their beds. He wears very strange clothes; his suit is made out of silk, but it is quite impossible to tell what color it is, for it changes all the time. One moment it is green, the next it’s red, and then it may turn blue. Under each arm he has an umbrella: one of them is all covered with pictures, and that he puts on the headboards of the beds of good children, so that they will dream wonderful stories all the night through. The other umbrella has no pictures at all; that is the one bad children get. They toss and turn all night; and when they wake in the morning, they haven’t dreamed anything at all.
Now I want to tell you the stories that the sandman told a little boy named Hjalmar during one week. There are seven stories, for there are seven days in a week.
MONDAY
“Now look,” said the sandman that evening after he had gotten Hjalmar into bed, “I think I’ll fix up your room a little.”
At once all the potted plants grew into huge trees that reached all the way to the ceiling. They stretched their limbs across it, and up and down the walls. The room became the loveliest green arbor. On all the branches flowers bloomed; every one of them was more beautiful and fragrant than a rose; and if you ate them, they tasted sweeter than jam. There were fruits on the trees that shon
e like gold, and buns bursting with raisins. Oh, it was quite marvelous! But amidst all this splendor, someone was unhappy. The sound of sighing and whimpering came from the table drawer where Hjalmar kept his school-books.
“Now what is the matter?” said the sandman as he opened the drawer.
It was the slate that was sighing; Hjalmar had done his sums on it, and added everything up wrong. The slate pencil, which hung from a piece of string at the corner of the slate, was jumping about in agony as a little dog does on a leash. It wanted to help but it couldn’t. Hjalmar’s exercise book was sobbing too; it was heartrending to hear. On the top of each page were printed the most exquisite letters, models for the student to copy. Hjalmar had tried, but his letters did not resemble the printed ones: they didn’t stand up straight, but more or less dragged themselves along the lines; they looked as if they were fainting or having fits.
“Stand up straight!” screamed the printed letters. “Look at us!”
“Oh, we would love to,” sighed Hjalmar’s letters. “But we can’t, we are not feeling well.”
“You should have cod-liver oil,” said the sandman.
That helped; the letters that Hjalmar had written got so frightened that they immediately straightened themselves.
“I see there won’t be any time for stories tonight; I’d better drill them!” said the sandman as he looked severely at the poor letters. They, in turn, blushed; and all the A’s appeared really ashamed.
“Left … right … left … right,” he commanded. And the letters obeyed him as if they were soldiers. Soon they stood as straight and handsome as their printed brothers. But the next morning, when Hjalmar peeped at them, they looked just as wretched as they had the day before.
TUESDAY
As soon as Hjalmar had got into bed the sandman touched all the furniture in the room with his magic wand; and they began to talk. They all talked about themselves except for the spittoon; it stood silently in its corner, it was so disgusted by the vanity and egocentricity of all the others, who only thought about themselves and never—not even for a moment—of poor creatures like himself, who had to stand in a corner and be spit at.
On the wall above the chest of drawers hung a painting of a landscape, with trees, flowers, and a meadow. In the background there were several castles; it was a very pretty painting, framed in gold. The sandman touched the painting and everything within it became alive. The birds began to sing and the branches of the trees swayed in the wind. The clouds sailed in the sky, casting their shadows upon the grass in the meadow.
The sandman lifted the sleeping Hjalmar out of his bed and held him up to the picture. The boy took a step, and there he was, inside the painting. The sun was shining through the leaves of the trees. He ran down to the river; there was a little sailing ship moored to the bank. It was painted red and white. The sails shone like silver; and six swans, with golden crowns on their heads, drew it through the water. Hjalmar sailed past the forest and the trees told him stories about robbers, witches, the little elves that lived in flowers, and the tales that they—the trees—had heard from the butterflies.
The most wonderful fish, with silver and gold scales, swam around the boat; they jumped out of the water into the air and then fell with a splash back down into the river. Birds of all colors and sizes flew above him. All the animals, even the mosquitoes and flying beetles, wanted to get near Hjalmar; and each one had a little story to tell him.
It was a real voyage. At one moment Hjalmar was sailing through a dense, dark forest, and the next, through a beautiful garden filled with sunlight and flowers. He sailed past marble castles, and on their balconies stood the loveliest princesses; and the strangest part of it was that they looked exactly like the girls he played with every day. The princesses were holding sugar pigs that were better than the ones you could buy in the market place. The girls offered to share them with Hjalmar. When he took hold of an end of a pig, it broke off and he always received the larger piece and the princess the smaller one. In front of every castle a little prince with a golden sword stood guard; and when Hjalmar sailed by, they ordered it to rain tin soldiers and raisins—for they were real princes.
Sometimes he seemed to be sailing through the halls of great mansions, and at other times, right through fantastic towns. He visited the one where the nursemaid lived, who had taken care of him when he was a baby. Hjalmar loved her dearly. There she stood on the square waving to him and singing a little verse about him, which she had composed herself:
“Oh, my little boy, how I do miss
The sight of your sweet face,
The little mouth that I did kiss,
Your trusting, innocent gaze.
I shared your laughter, your mirth;
And yet we had to part.
May God bless you on this earth,
And keep pure your loving heart.”
And all the birds joined her song. The flowers danced and the trees nodded, as if they, too, had been told stories by the sandman.
WEDNESDAY
It was pouring outside. Hjalmar could hear the rain beating on the roof, even though he was sleeping. The sandman opened the window. The street had become a lake and right below Hjalmar’s window a great ship was moored.
“Come for a sail, Hjalmar,” said the sandman. “This ship will take you far away; and yet, when you wake up tomorrow, you will be back in your bed.”
Hjalmar stood up and got dressed in his Sunday suit. Once he was on the deck of the ship, it was no longer raining, the sun was shining. A wind gently filled the sails. The ship tacked around the church and through the streets. Soon it was out on the ocean. As far as the eye could see stretched the wild sea. Hjalmar saw a flock of storks; they were on their way to the hot countries. One of the storks flew low and far behind the others. They had been flying for days, and this stork was ever so tired. Its great wings beat slower and slower, as it came nearer and nearer to the surface of the sea. It tried to gain height but it couldn’t; then it collided with the sail of the ship, falling with a loud bump, down on the deck.
The cabin boy picked it up and put it in the little hen coop amidships. There it stood looking very bedraggled and sad among the hens, ducks, and turkeys.
“What a creature!” cackled all the hens.
The turkey cock rustled his feathers and made himself look twice as big as he was; then he spoke to the stork, asking him who he was and where he came from.
The ducks nudged each other and said, “Quack … quack!”
The stork told them about the hot countries, about Egypt with its pyramids, and the ostrich that can run across the desert sands faster than a horse.
The ducks didn’t understand a word he said and, therefore, remarked to each other, “Let us agree that he is stupid.”
“Certainly he is stupid,” gobbled the turkey cock, making so much noise that the stork stopped talking. He just stood in a corner of the coop and thought about Africa.
“What beautiful long thin legs,” gobbled the turkey. “What do they cost a yard?”
“Quack quack quack!” laughed all the ducks, while the stork pretended that he hadn’t heard the insult.
“You ought to join in the merriment,” said the turkey, “for it was very witty indeed. Or do you find it too low a joke? I mean for someone like you who has such high legs? Gobble! Gobble!” laughed the turkey. “You have no sense of humor. The rest of us have both wit and intellect; we are most interesting!”
The turkey gobbled and the ducks quacked, for they found themselves ever so amusing.
Hjalmar walked over to the hen coop, opened the door, and let the stork out. Now that it was rested, the stork could fly again. It nodded to Hjalmar as though it were saying thank you; and then it spread its great wings and flew south toward Egypt.
The hens clucked; the ducks quacked; and the turkey cock got all red in the face.
“Tomorrow we are going to cook soup of you,” said Hjalmar, and then he woke up. He was back in his little bed.
That certainly had been a strange journey the sandman had taken him out on.
THURSDAY
“Now!” began the sandman. “Don’t be afraid, here is a little mouse.” And he held a little sweet furry animal up to Hjalmar. “It has come to invite you to a wedding; two of the little mice who live beneath the floor of your mother’s larder have decided to marry. They have a beautiful apartment down there.”
“But how will I get down through the mousehole?” asked Hjalmar.
“Let me see,” said the sandman thoughtfully. “I will have to make you smaller.” He touched Hjalmar with his magic wand. Instantly the boy began to grow smaller, until finally he wasn’t larger than your forefinger. “Now you can borrow the tin soldier’s uniform; it is always nice to wear a uniform when you are invited out.”
“I will,” said Hjalmar; and in a moment he had the uniform on and looked like the nicest little tin soldier.
“Please, sir, would you be so kind as to sit down in your mother’s thimble? That will be your carriage and I will be your horse,” said the little female mouse.
“Am I to be pulled by a girl? Won’t it be too hard work?” asked Hjalmar politely; but he was already on his way to the mouse wedding. They were driving in a long corridor that was just wide enough for the mouse and her guest to pass through. It wasn’t dark at all. Little pieces of dry rotten wood illuminated the way.
“Doesn’t it smell lovely here?” asked the mouse. “The hall has been greased with lard, and that of the best quality.”
Now they entered the chamber where the wedding was to take place. To the right stood all the female mice; they were whispering to each other and making faces. To the left stood the male mice; they were stroking their whiskers but didn’t say much. In the middle of the room were the bridal couple; they sat on a cheese rind and kissed each other all the time, which was permissible in public, for they were engaged and soon would be married.